n, representing points of interest in the desert country.
I've a horned toad at home, and a blue-tailed lizard, and some pictures
of jack rabbits, with their ears attached to the frame, and quite a few
rattlesnake rattles. So to-day," she smiled again at him, "I rode down
here to take a picture of you!"

"Thanks," said Johnny, apparently unmoved. "I didn't know I was a point
of interest in your eyes; but seeing I am, I'm willing the girls should
have a picture of me framed. If you'll go out and sit in the shade of the
shack while I shave and doll up a little, you may take a picture. And
I'll autograph it for you. Five years from now," he went on complacently,
"you're going to brag about having it in your possession. One of those
I-knew-him-when kind of brags. And if you'll bring the girls around some
time when I'm pulling off an exhibition flight, I'll let 'em shake hands
with me."

"Well, of all the conceit!" By that one futile phrase Mary V owned
herself defeated in the first charge. "Of all--"

"Conceit? Nothing like that! When you thought it was a good cause to
ride all these miles on the hottest day of the year, just to get my
picture--" Johnny smirked at her in a perfectly maddening way. He knew it
was maddening to Mary V, for he had meant it to be so.

"I did not!" Mary V's face could not be any redder than the heat had made
it, but even so one could see the rise in her mental temperature.

"You said you did."

"Well--I merely want your picture to put with my collection of donkeys!
You--"

"You said points of interest," Johnny reminded her. He had lost all his
moroseness in the interest of the conversation. He had forgotten what a
tonic his word-battles with Mary V could furnish. "You better stick to
it, because it will sure pan out that way. You'll hate to admit, five
years from now, that you once took me for a donkey. Besides, you can't
have my ears to pin to the frame; I'll need 'em to listen to all the nice
things some _real_ girls will be saying to me when I've just made an
exhibition flight."

"Exhibition flight--of your imagination!" fleered Mary V, curling her lip
at him. "And I won't need your ears to prove you're a donkey, so don't
worry about that."

Johnny Jewel stood up, lifted his arms high above his head to stretch
his healthy young muscles, pulled his face all askew in a yawn, rumpled
his hair again and reached for his papers and tobacco. He knew that Mary
V never noticed or cared if a